


i hide my tongue behind my teeth and buy myself a new belief

by Cunninglinguist



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Beach House, Canon-Typical Behavior, Gay Sex, Guns, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Missing Scene, Mutual Pining, Porn with Feelings, Season/Series 05 Spoilers, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, That totally happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 22:14:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21144071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cunninglinguist/pseuds/Cunninglinguist
Summary: “I will continue,” he says, meeting his ever-worthy adversary’s eyes, “until I find a man who I cannot defeat.”“Hmm.” There’s a barely-there smirk under that great beard.I am a man who you could not defeathangs unspoken and heavy between them.The room is suddenly stifling, despite the cool breeze wafting in periodically from the balcony. A ghostly pain throbs in Tommy’s temple, a remnant from the priest’s assault that’s never truly gone away. He sucks in a breath and stands to leave. “That’s it, then, eh?”As he passes, Alfie grabs his wrist.Alternatively: the totally canon missing part from the Beach House Scene (TM) in the Peaky Blinders season 5 finale.





	i hide my tongue behind my teeth and buy myself a new belief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashkore_varg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkore_varg/gifts).

> This one goes out to ashkore_varg because I fucking treasure our various shouting sessions over many a ship, particularly this one. I adore you.
> 
> This is not beta'd even a little. Also, if you haven't seen season 5 of Peaky B & want to avoid spoilers, you should probably steer clear.

When Alfie told Tommy about his house in Margate, Tommy had imagined a place exactly like this.

Baroque mirrors. Jewel-encrusted trinkets and odd little knickknacks on every surface, each inviting a conversation. A bloody menagerie of taxidermied animals. Opulent mouldings and curious sconces. A blaring gramophone. Books in every language known to man, some long-dead, spilling out of finely carved bookshelves and onto tabletops. Sumptuous velvet armchairs and chaise lounges. A perfect, unobstructed view of the sea. Every last, beloved detail, carefully taken into consideration. 

Tommy can see how a person could get used to all of this. There’s something sacred in this solitude, in surrounding oneself with prized possessions and a silence that can only be broken by choice. He still can’t believe that Alfie has elected to interrupt the slow flow of his afterlife with his presence, but here he is: standing on the mosaic balcony, tapping his finger against the balustrade, and waiting to see a ghost. 

It’s a grey day, and the sky is ripe for a tempest. The waves roll onto the beach, crashing white and foamy before slinking away. Over and over, the way they always have done and always will do, until the moon is torn from the sky. Tommy wrinkles his nose at the chill of the sea breeze. A man and two small children are down a ways on the shore, buttoned up in coats and hats. What simple lives they must lead. 

Secretly, he hopes that one day he can make something like this. Not that he would deserve it, ever, but it would be nice to know that some modicum of peace is achievable for a man like him. The voices in his head swell to a melancholy wail, and Tommy squeezes his eyes shut, urging the will to jump to recede from his mind like seawater.

When Alfie finally lumbers into the parlor, Tommy has to mask the breath that catches in his throat with a cough. His self-proclaimed resurrection hasn’t been a secret to Tommy for some time, but there’s little to be done for visceral reactions. Everything comes flooding back to him, a barrage of confusing feelings and just a hint of relief. It’s really, truly him. In the flesh. 

Tommy immediately zeroes in on the glass eye, milky-grey and stormy like the sky. The facial scar is ragged and chaotic, mottling an entire side of his face. It should be repugnant, but Tommy finds that it quite suits him. The slight strain in his waistcoat indicates just a bit of weight gain, which Tommy finds endearing. It’s nice to know that Alfie has found some comfort here.

And perhaps it’s just the opium, but Alfie looks rather pleased to see Tommy, right eye glittering, eyebrows knitted together like he’s bracing himself for utter absurdity. Almost like he used to look, back when things were...different.

No one has ever known Tommy quite like Alfie. And no one ever will.

They sit opposite one another and fall into it like no time has passed, an aching familiarity resurfacing with just a bit of a bite. Tommy nearly crushes his cigarette between his fingers trying to tamp down the pang of want, the yearning for everything that was between them, and everything that could have been. He often wonders what would have happened if he’d just let Alfie be. Even more frequently, he wonders what would have happened if he’d gone away with him the way Alfie had asked him to, that one dark night in the bakery. And again in London, at the fight. 

He supposes they would have come here to die together. To rise from the ashes, quietly, dead men reborn. 

The sound of the gun cocking pulls Tommy from his unproductive thoughts, but doesn’t surprise him. There’s a whisper of a moment where Tommy thinks that Alfie is going to kill him, well and truly do it, but he doesn’t. 

_One, two, three, bang._

The breathing in the back of Tommy’s mind slows. Alfie looks at him like he’s touched in the head and carries on, and Tommy isn’t sure if he’s disappointed or not. It’s nothing short of unbelievable that Alfie hasn’t gone and offed him yet; he wonders what he’s waiting for. 

“So, what now, hmm?” They’ve come to a tenuous agreement on the matter of the fascist, and now Alfie is eyeing Tommy with very specific intent. Tommy stubs his cigarette out and tries not to think about it. Nor about the fact that Alfie has just confessed to dreaming about him. 

He tries not to think about the fact that he has also dreamt of Alfie. 

“I will continue,” he says, meeting his ever-worthy adversary’s eyes, “until I find a man who I cannot defeat.”

“Hmm.” There’s a barely-there smirk under that great beard.

_I am a man who you could not defeat_ hangs unspoken and heavy between them.

The room is suddenly stifling, despite the cool breeze wafting in periodically from the balcony. A ghostly pain throbs in Tommy’s temple, a remnant from the priest’s assault that’s never truly gone away. He sucks in a breath and stands to leave. “That’s it, then, eh?”

As he passes, Alfie grabs his wrist.

_Is this it?_

A thousand thoughts rush Tommy’s brain like water in a storm-swept stream. The bullet doesn’t come, nor the knife. Just Alfie’s voice, hushed and earnest in a way that Tommy had never expected to hear again.

“My dream, the one about you. Sometimes it’s different.”

The haunted voices that have plagued the deepest recesses of Tommy’s mind fall suddenly quiet, giving way to Alfie’s controlled, heavy breathing, as rhythmic as the waves upon the shore.

“Sometimes you’re not in a field, on a horse. Yeah.” The fingers around his wrist loosen and slide lower. “Sometimes, you’re here. In my house.”

Tommy swallows. Somewhere on the beach, a child shrieks with laughter. Alfie entwines their hands like nothing, nodding towards the balcony. “You’re standing out there, looking at the sea. Not a crease on that face of yours. Not a care in the bloody world.”

Tommy finds his voice. “Doesn’t sound like me.”

“No it don’t, does it.” Alfie’s grip tightens. “Could be, though, mate. Could very well fucking be. If you wanted it.”

Tommy scoffs. “It could really be that simple, eh?” 

“Mmm, yeah. Could be.”

It’s so much at once, Tommy gets a bit dizzy. He stares down at Alfie, heart thundering, acutely aware of the moment’s fragility. He has precious seconds to decide the direction of the immediate future. Any moment could be his last, by his own hand or that of another, and the invitation is clear--as clear as it can be for men like them. Why not go for broke?

He tosses his hat aside and pours himself carefully into Alfie’s lap, who looks inexplicably both unsurprised and completely shocked at the development. He leans forward, mouth brushing against Alfie’s ear. “And since you are now a god, would you use your powers to wipe me from the earth, too?”

Huge, familiar hands slide up his back, warm even through his great bloody overcoat. Tommy swallows a groan and continues, “We could be dead together.”

“We could be, yeah.” Full lips press against his throat. “I’d pull the fucking stars down out of the sky, Tom.” 

Tommy exhales audibly and tips his head back, blood spiking like he’s been dosed. Despite everything that’s transpired, he allows himself to have this ephemeral moment with a man he never thought he’d see again. “And would there be a statue in my likeness too, then, in your holy land?”

“Just like mine, mate.” Alfie slips decisive fingers into Tommy’s coat and slowly slides it from his shoulders, down his arms, until it pools on the floor like snakeskin. “We could see who casts the bigger shadow, right.”

“Fuck off.” Tommy grabs his face and kisses him, full on the lips, relishing in the scratch of whiskers against his clean-shaven face. Alfie cups the back of his head and returns the kiss possessively, licking into his mouth with a fervor that Tommy can only try to survive. 

If it kills him, what a way to go. 

The sensory overload of it all is stunning, the urgency nearly knocking the wind from Tommy’s lungs. It’s familiar, but it isn’t--there’s more desperation now than there ever was in that bloody London hotel room, in Alfie’s offices, at Tommy’s Warwickshire home. Everything had hung in the balance then, too, but they’d been radically different men.

Hell, Alfie was a fucking god now.

Alfie unbuttons his shirt, slow and methodical, warm fingers grazing revealed skin. The concentration on his face hearkens back to the days of poring over accounts in the distillery, and Tommy’s heart clenches. 

“Oh, fuck me,” he sighs as his suspenders are pushed off his shoulders, making way for eager lips to suck dark bruises into delicate flesh.

Alfie looks him right in the eye and yanks his shirt open, sending the remaining buttons skittering across the floor. “I intend to, Tom. ‘Til your pretty blue eyes roll back in your head and you make the loveliest mess all over yourself.” 

_Fuck,_ he missed this. “In your dreams,” he murmurs, burying his hands in Alfie’s hair, “do I do this?” He rolls his hips, gasping at how hard Alfie is beneath him, proof of how much he wants him.

Alfie’s deep chuckle rumbles through their bodies. “Might have done a few times, yeah.”

“Dirty old man.” 

“I thought I was a god?”

Tommy’s retort dies in his throat as skilled fingers plunge into his trousers. Alfie gives him a languid tug that renders his brain nearly useless, but he’s not worried, no, he’s not worried. He lets Alfie maneuver him onto his back and strip him of his remaining clothes, eyes glazing over with lust.

Alfie hunches over him, still fully dressed, save for a few hastily undone buttons on his shirt and waistcoat. The chill of his pocket-watch grazes the heated flesh of Tommy’s abdomen, eliciting a hiss from between Tommy’s teeth. He grins, batting Tommy’s hands away as he reaches for a vial on his desk. 

Alfie takes his time here, as he’s always done. It’s fucking glorious, this--the stretch, the sight of Alfie between his thighs, the utter concession of control. Tommy stares at an intricate lamp on the desk, all golden curlicues and soft light, as he attempts to control his breath, quick and fever-hot as Alfie fucks him deep and slow with his fingers. 

“There’s a good boy, Tommy,” murmurs Alfie when Tommy spreads his legs even wider, desperation clawing its way from his throat in a choked sob. “_Fucking_ hell, there’s a lovely boy.” 

The praise moves Tommy’s insides in ways that he’d rather not examine, but he rocks up into the touch. Alfie knows just where to stroke to make him shake and drool, to coax all the noises he wishes he could bite back right out of him. He reaches for his prick, aching and dripping, but Alfie grabs his wrist and pins it overhead. 

“Not until I say, right.”

He lets out a whine that he tries to mask with a ragged, “sadistic bastard,” but Alfie slides a third finger inside of him and he forgets which way is up.

“Come on, then,” says Alfie finally, removing his hand to undo his trousers. “You’re ready, Tom. You’re ready.”

Tommy reaches up for the armrest, expecting to be taken as he is, spread-eagled on his back, a callback to their first time, drunk and urgent in that hotel room. 

Alfie has different ideas.

With a gruff, “My knees ain’t what they used to be,” he guides Tommy back into his lap. Blood rushes in Tommy’s ears as he feels Alfie nudging against him, hot and slick and swollen.

Tommy’s entire body quivers as he takes Alfie’s scruffy, scarred face in his hands. Alfie grabs him by the hips and meets his eyes, gaze dark with desire and something that mirrors the vulnerable things that Tommy keeps locked away in his chest, objectively meaningless if left unspoken.

“Get on with it,” says Tommy, thrumming with need. Without further preamble, Alfie slowly lowers him down, pushing inside slow and hot. 

It’s fucking painful, it always is at first, and Tommy’s heart skips several beats. He loves it, he lives for the pain, especially this, dull and exquisite. He’s burning from the inside, sweat rolling down his back as hands squeeze his arse and grip his sides, fingernails digging salt-stung welts into his flesh, reminding him that he is _alive_ for the first time since he last had Alfie Solomons like this. 

“Fuck, you’re tight,” murmurs Alfie, voice straining. Tommy rolls his hips, eyelids fluttering at the change in depth and angle. Alfie looks up at him like he’s the god and Alfie the supplicant, sweating through his shirt and halfway undone waistcoat. A smile colors Tommy’s next exhale as he repeats the motion, wrapping his arms around Alfie’s shoulders to press them tightly together, two sides of the same wicked coin. 

“So good, love,” whispers Alfie in Tommy’s ear. “Want to fuck you every day.”

Now that his face is hidden, Tommy lets his eyes roll back in his head, and permits an obscene moan to pass his lips as Alfie’s cock rubs against the place inside him that makes him see fucking stars. 

“That’s it, right?” Alfie pulls him down with a deep grunt. Tommy throws his head back and cries out, vision blurring around the edges. “Mmm, that’s your spot, yeah.”

“Yeah,” whispers Tommy, because it’s so good, so fucking good. He’s not sure if he can make it through this without bursting into tears. He bites down on Alfie’s shoulder to smother the sex-delirious tears and words that threaten to burst forth, drooling copiously on expensive fabric as whiskey-hot pleasure builds in his belly. He bucks his hips, helplessly chasing the feeling he’s not sure if he wants to succumb to or stave off.

“In all my dreams...” Whiskery lips part against his neck. A wicked tongue slides slow and humid up his flesh, sharp teeth within ripping distance of his jugular, tasting, savoring. “Nothing could come close. Nothing could come fucking close, Tommy.”

He’s got to squeeze his eyes shut at that, like it’ll help drive back the fire burning within him. “Fuck,” he whispers, hands shaking as he holds onto Alfie for dear life. 

“There you are.” Alfie spits in his hand and snakes it between their heaving bodies. Tommy seizes up and lets out a wail. He tenses up around Alfie as everything ratchets up tenfold, a hundredfold. “Look at you, hmm, just look at you.”

_”Fuck.”_ Tommy can feel himself giving in, blood rushing between his thighs as he bucks feverishly into Alfie’s hand and grinds onto his cock. God, Alfie’s _everywhere,_ engulfing him, consuming him, breathing life between parted lips with hot, harsh exhales. “Can I— can I—“

A great tremor runs through Alfie and his hand falters, but only for a moment. “Fucking hell, yeah. Come for me, Tom. Come on, love.”

Oh, and that’s it. It’s too much, it’s always too much with him—

As if on command, Tommy convulses, head thrown back, mouth slack as he comes with a cry, long and hard into Alfie’s hand and all over that expensive waistcoat. Time grinds to a halt, the world suspended in the bedlam of ecstasy--the only thing that matters is right now, his body and Alfie’s, entwined as one, surrounded by the sea.

“Hmm, good boy. God, that’s it, good boy, fuck, you’re lovely.” Tommy’s faintly aware of the praise whispered heatedly in his ear as Alfie fucks up into him. Though his head is spinning with the haze of his orgasm, Tommy throws his body into it, letting out overstimulated gasps and sighs that he can’t quite control, knowing they will help his desperate lover along. 

“Come on.” Tommy’s sweat-slick forehead rests against Alfie’s as he meets his eyes. “Finish inside me, go on.”

That does it, he knew it would. Tommy bites his lip and strokes his thumbs raggedly over Alfie’s bearded cheeks, as Alfie yanks his hips down and goes rigid, releasing deep inside of him with a choked gasp of Tommy’s name. 

Once he’s caught his breath, Alfie kisses Tommy deeply. A myriad of emotions unfolds within him, bringing with it a humiliating, hot rush of tears. A cold spike of loathing stabs through the post-fuck warmth in Tommy’s gut, but he throws himself into the kiss despite himself. 

“God, the things you do to me, Tommy Shelby.” Alfie swipes a tear from Tommy’s cheekbone, signaling abject failure, but Tommy can’t bring himself to care. He’s still in Alfie’s lap, tacky with cooling sweat as Alfie’s prick softens slowly inside of him. The world resumes its slow turn as they stay like this for just a bit longer, Alfie stroking an absent palm up and down Tommy’s back as Tommy comes to terms with the fact that he’ll have to leave this place soon. 

“Alfie, I…” 

“What is it?” A gentle hand immediately cups his face. “Tell me.”

Tommy looks away. Alfie doesn’t, not for a time, but Tommy says nothing, hating himself. All those pretty, delicate words he’s been hiding away for so long stay hidden, sticking in his throat like poison.

“Right.” Alfie eases Tommy off of him with a sigh, and the window closes. He lumbers off to fetch some flannels, muttering unintelligibly to himself. As they clean up in charged silence, Tommy’s face heats at the sight of the stain on Alfie’s waistcoat as he shrugs it off.

“Sorry about that.”

“Fuck off.” Alfie smirks. “You’re as sorry about that as I am sorry about your shirt, mate.”

Tommy frowns. The buttonholes he’s been fumbling with for several moments no longer have corresponding closures. “You don’t sound sorry.” 

“That’s ‘cos I’m not.” Alfie cracks his back with a low groan and reaches for his trousers. “Can’t be the first time you’ve turned up at home with missing buttons, right.” 

“No, I suppose it can’t be.”

The maid brings them tea with no comment, blissfully, which they share until the clouds grow darker. Tommy’s already stayed too long, he knows, but he lingers all the same. His eyes roam over all of the little things he noticed earlier, taking in how perfectly Alfie fits in amongst them. Paradise.

If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was committing it all to memory. 

“Don’t suppose I could convince you to stay.” Alfie slides his half-moon spectacles onto his nose and checks his pocket watch. “Gilda’s made enough supper for two, see, would be no trouble at all.”

Tommy’s heart strains in ways he’d long forsaken as impossible, outgrown. It _would_ be no trouble at all. With little to no effort, Tommy could be coaxed into abandoning absolutely everything to die out here in Margate. It could be beautiful: lounging on opulent sofas reading all day, listening to records, taking long walks on the sand and morning swims in the sea. He could probably bring his horse, there was certainly enough space. He could help Alfie with the bookkeeping, make himself useful. Home-cooked meals, fresh coffee, no disturbances all day long. Every night they’d go to bed together, fucking as loud as they’d like and sleeping until the sun shone through the curtains. It could work perfectly.

But everything Tommy touches turns to shit, and taking this paradise from Alfie is something that not even he could stomach. He smiles tightly, ignoring the throb that’s returned to his temples and delivers a palatable line. “Ah. No, thank you. As lovely as that sounds, business summons me away.”

“Business, right.” Alfie’s closed his book, and is now staring at Tommy with something akin to hope in his eyes. “But you were considering it, weren’t you, mate?”

“I might have done.” Tommy fishes a greatly-needed cigarette from his coat pocket, but hesitates. “Tell you what. When all of this is settled with Mosley...ask me again.”

Tommy doesn’t miss the way Alfie’s good eye lights up for just a moment. He scowls and grabs a book from the end-table. “Alright, then. I will do that.”

There’s a beat of silence that yawns between them, filled with the soothing sound of the sea and a deep breathing that doesn’t belong to either one of them and everything that Tommy is about to turn down again. He’s almost stricken by how much he doesn’t want to leave this home by the sea, filled with comfort and warmth and things that remind him of the man he almost lost. He doesn’t want to go back.

But he has to.

“Right.” Tommy adjusts his cap on his head and lights that cigarette. “I’ll be seeing you, Alfie Solomons.”

“Until next time, Mr. Shelby.” Some papers rustle. “Do try not to get yourself killed, yeah?”

“No guarantees.”

Without a backwards glance, Tommy leaves, hoping the warmth of the house would cling to his back for as long as its shadow did. On the way to the car, he walks down to the beach and lights another cigarette, watching the waves until the embers scorch his fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this fic, please let me know--comments are my life's blood, & I also enjoy kudos! 
> 
> The fic title inspired by lyrics from this [banger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbTy4w_hoqc) because I’m always listening to industrial & thinking about my ships.
> 
> Catch me on [Tumblr dot com](http://hannibalssweaters.tumblr.com/), if you're into that.


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